Recent Stories

Lebanon Still Overshadowed by Oblivion As Port Blast Aftermath Enters Fourth Year
 
Art has played an influential role in making sense of the loss felt after the August 4 explosion. Tom Young’s “Strong Angels” and other paintings show a human dimension of the tragedy and its civilian heroes, who “join forces to lift the city’s grief,” writes Darine Houmani of Diffah Three (The New Arab). “Despite all its devastation, the August 4 explosion brought greater impetus to preserve our heritage and brought about a database of our historical buildings that hadn’t been done before,” states Mona Hallak, an architect, heritage activist, and director of the American University of Beirut’s Neighborhood Initiative, as cited in The New Arab. Several weighed in on the rebuilding efforts, including Lebanese architect Jad Tabet, who proposed “rehabilitation” rather than “reconstruction,” focusing on preserving the city’s existing social fabric and inhabitants alongside the architecture (for further reading on Jad Tabet and architectural heritage, see Al Jadid, Vol. 4, No, 25, Fall 1998; Vol. 5, No. 26, Winter 1999; and Vol. 24, No. 79, 2020). As art historian and gallery owner Andrée Sfeir-Semler says, “You need to nourish people with art and culture because that is what feeds their souls.”

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Our Current Issue

From Renaissance to the Digital Age:

How Translation Can Power Arabic’s Future
By Naomi Pham
 
The Arabic language, with all its vast, rich history, has frequently been a subject of concern among intellectuals and linguists throughout recent years. The language has experienced significant development over the past century and a half and remains one of the most widely spoken languages, the official language of over 20 countries, and used by over 400 million speakers. Despite this, articles emerge every other year worrying about its development.
Essays and Features

Not a Kafer, Just a Critic:

How Ziad Rahbani Challenged Religious and Political Orthodoxy with Wit, Sorrow, and Song
By Sami Asmar
 
On 26 July 2025, the Lebanese composer, pianist, playwright, and polemicist Ziad Rahbani passed away from cirrhosis of the liver in Beirut at the age of 69. Since he started composing as a teenager, the son of the legendary Fairuz (now 90 years old) and the late Assi Rahbani of the celebrated Rahbani Brothers, the musical prodigies who defined the shape of the modern Lebanese short song, Ziad leaves us a multi-decade-long legacy that reshaped Arab music and Lebanese politics. The genius and enigmatic Ziad will be remembered by his countless fans worldwide, but likely happily forgotten by the authorities he challenged and ridiculed. 
Essays and Features

Aftermath of the Mar Elias Church Bombing:

Abeer Dagher Esber on the ‘Sectarianization of Blood’ in Syria’s Long Continuum of Collapse
By Naomi Pham
 
The recent attacks on the Church of Mar Elias in Al-Dweilaa on June 22, 2025 during Divine Liturgy left at least 25 dead and 63 injured. Perhaps Syrians have become accustomed to hearing such tragedy in the news, for every month a new story of blood, violence, and climbing death tolls appears, the massacres on the Syrian coast still a fresh wound on top of the losses suffered in Al-Dweilaa. Abeer Dagher Esber’s impassioned response to the attacks in her essay, “A Prophet of Fire… Consumed by Our Zero-Sum Conflicts,”* is an unflinching criticism of Syria’s problems. The attack on the Church of Mar Elias is a "wound to the spiritual memory of Syria and to the symbolism of the saint whose name the church bears," she writes, adding, "It is a bloody irony that the place named after the ‘one who raised the dead’ should be blown up by someone who worships death, sees the Other as heresy, and life as merely a path toward a delusional glory."
Essays and Features

In Sickness and Silence: Arab Writers and Artists Between Pain and Power

By Elie Chalala
 
I grew up in Hazmièh, a small town east of Beirut, Lebanon's capital, during the early 1960s. Our rented apartment was situated near a modest multi-unit residential building, known as the Wadih El Safi building, named after the celebrated Lebanese singer who owned it. At the time, Wadih El Safi (1921-2013) was renowned for his wealth and fame, a reputation that endured after I immigrated to and settled in the United States. Wadih El Safi's later life is notable for his declaration of bankruptcy just a year before his death. He attributes his financial troubles to a monopoly contract he signed with Rotana, a Saudi Arabian record label and the music division of the Rotana Media Group.
Essays and Features

A Syrian Surgeon and Novelist Returns to a 'Country Once Called Syria'

Khalil al-Neimi Exposes What Tyranny Has Done to His Homeland
By Elie Chalala
 
I feel an affinity with Khalil al-Neimi, the author and novelist. Like him, I left my country, Lebanon, in 1972, and often thought about what I left behind. I gradually lost the desire to return, and later, after making a short visit back, I gave up on the idea altogether after being away for 38 years. Neimi and I differ on why it took us a long time to return (for me, 38 years, and for him, 50 years). It has been 53 years now since I departed Lebanon.
Essays and Features

Beating Up the Already Battered: Modern Arab Media’s Role in Bullying and Harassment

By 
Naomi Pham
 
Harming, intimidating, or mocking the vulnerable are familiar behaviors; some have witnessed the abuse from afar, while others have experienced it. We used to think of bullying as something that children do in the schoolyard, and ideally something they learn to stop after reflection and normal maturation. But beyond the playground, bullying and harassment serve as standard practice in fields like modern media. Arab media and television promote harmful and offensive depictions to impressionable audiences for higher ratings and money. Media networks also give platforms to regressive messages that cause both emotional and sometimes physical harm.
 
Harming, intimidating, or mocking the vulnerable are familiar behaviors; some have witnessed the abuse from afar, while others have experienced it. We used to think of bullying as something that children do in the schoolyard, and ideally something they learn to stop after reflection and normal maturation. But beyond the playground, bullying and harassment serve as standard practice in fields like modern media.

Plot Twist Ties up Distribution of Controversial Arab “Life Smuggling” Film

By 
Naomi Pham

Egyptian filmmaker Mohamed Diab’s 2019 “Amira” faced a storm of social media backlash following accusations that the film belittles the Palestinian struggle. Diab — director of the well-received “Cairo 678” (2010) and “Clash” (2016) — has pulled the film from any future screenings, including Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea Film Festival. This decision comes after Jordan’s Royal Film Commission ultimately withdrew “Amira” as its entry as the Oscar’s 2022 Best Foreign Film.

Poet, Publisher, Painter, and Patron of the Arts: Remembering the Extraordinary Etel Adnan (1925-2021)

By 
Elie Chalala
 
Lebanese-American writer Etel Adnan, beloved by many for her ‘meditative’ voice and colorful language in writing, passed away on November 14 in Paris at 96, leaving behind an evocative legacy of poetry, novels, and art that vividly depicted war, history, and nature.

Egyptian Belly Dance Losing Touch with Roots as Cultural Phenomenon

By 
Naomi Pham

Belly dance in Egypt has undergone major cultural and social transformations since the mid-20th century. Dancers often perform at live gatherings and across social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. However, belly dancing as an art form has become redefined in today’s age. It has increasingly been the target of criticism, the latest being a claim by Abdel Halim in Al Araby that the dance has deteriorated further under neoliberalism.

Beauty Before Age Remains Dominant Casting Trend in Arab Film

By 
Naomi Pham
 
The presence of women on the Arab silver screen has historically suffered under patriarchy. Though the “male gaze” is not exclusive to Arab cinema and television, the marginalization of women on the screen has increasingly affected Arab discourse. Hiyam Bannout’s article “Masculinity Dominates Arab Drama and Marginalizes Women” in Independent Arabia explores the lack of veteran and older actresses occupying major roles in film. Arab actresses are “dramatically marginalized” once they turn 40, brushed aside in favor of young actresses at the expense of limited talent and experience, according to Bannout.

A Multifaceted Diaspora: New History Explores the Many Reasons for 20th Century Exodus of Egyptian Jewry

By 
Elie Chalala
 
Once home to as many as 75,000 Jews, today’s Egypt has a sparse population, with only nine Jewish Egyptians living in the country in 2021, according to the Jewish Virtual Library. Dr. Muhammad Abu al-Ghar’s new book, “The Jews of Egypt in the Twentieth Century: How They Lived and Why They Left” (Dar al-Shorouk, 2021, 476 pp) addresses the departure of Jews from the country from the early to mid-19th century to the present.

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